AI has torched the market for junior programmers

For sure, sufficient money is important part of this equation.

But I strongly believe that if you find (your sort of) fun in what you do then you become faster and more efficient at it.

Edit: Cleaning, nursing etc. Yes there are professions that almost no one wants to do. But that doesn’t mean that these people do it just for money.. this is prejudice that if you don’t like it and don’t have fun that other people are the same. No, they aren’t.

It's a job, working for someone else. What other reason is there?

I do the job for money. Period.

I also happen to really enjoy computers, systems, etc. I enjoyed most of the jobs I've had, but the reason why I was there doing the job, as opposed to being at home nerding out for my benefit alone, was always the need to pay bills.

in your place i’d focus on delivering big wins for end-users via multiple roles ; i personally believe the days of being a specialist in one type of stack (ex: “i’m a ui developer”) are over , in this next stage we’ll say “i build products for young people looking for educational opportunities “ ; ie you’ll beed to cut across use-cases and disciplines in a way that was atypical just a few years ago

our noob to hero pipeline these days is just requisitions that cover some basics but flat out say its an entry position and a chance to step into something new. we quickly weed out the overqualified and find candidates who seem like theyre genuinely just looking to find a way to break into something new, and our interview process is largely centered around getting to know them as a person what they're all about and we seem to do an okay job triangulating "this kid is curious, seems like they'd glue well with everyone here". mildly grill on some technical stuff but mostly just to get a read on where they're at & make assessments on what we're willing to teach. we actually don't do whiteboarding coding exercises or any of those challenges, not really a fan of those and i've never felt like they were a useful litmus test on whether or not someone will be successful in a role. people can hide a lot of insufficiencies/ego/insecurity/toxicity behind coding exercises, polished resumes and mastering interviews. it is of our opinion that the journey to expertise/excellence also involves having a good grasp on who you are as a person & who you want to be, and a solid moral compass you can navigate with. because there will be highs and there will be some very low lows, any journey to excellence sails these seas & we're very interested in people who can be open and honest about where they might be.

at this point we've reasoned out that the normal requisition is just going to get an influx of people who think they're charmers and can rehearse an interview and then pan out to be a nothingburger. we've had a couple of those in the past few years and it's annoying. we don't hire often do but when we do we're just interested in having someone around that we like and seems eager to learn, we've had great luck with this formula and this seems to pluck out people who get lost in a sea of incredible looking resumes, we give them a good learning track and goals and they seem to leapfrog past every goalpost we've put in front of them. as far as juniors go, we like hearing about other weird non-computer problems they've solved in life. when we find the right candidate we kind of just know when we talk with them, they universally are pretty open about their own shortcomings but just demonstrate some sort of very passionate need to build or solve things and find a community where their contributions are valued. we see the mission as needing to build them up as a person first and the nerdy stuff is the fun sidequest they can join us and chase dopamine with. we all enjoy teaching & watching people grow so it works out pretty well and we've transitioned a couple to senior positions in the past 4-5 years. people who, when we first interviewed them years ago, may have not had any business on paper being in this field. people we're proud to have watched pan out to be incredible resources, some of the heaviest hitters our org has seen, and if im being real at this point really great friends.